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lunarsands · 11 months

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ALSMP Fanfic: Along The Roads To Sanctuary Ch 4

Bonus also Empires SMP S2 fanfic! I just didn’t want to make the title field too long ^_^;

Characters: PearlescentMoon, Scott Smajor, MythicalSausage, Eddie, Joel Smallishbeans, Bubbles the Dog, Hermes, mentions of other Empires S2 characters, including a certain misplaced warlock… Sausage Supreme

Relationships: MythicalSausage/Scott Smajor

Tags: Canon Divergent, fictional religion, scosage, Afterlife SMP meets Empires SMP S2 but in an AU way

Warnings: violence, surrealism via magic auras, humorous misunderstandings about infidelity (tfw your husband cheats on you…with you), kidnapping (although we know how that went in canon)

(Sequel to Echoing Through To You, When The Skies Cry, Until The Blood Moon Descends, Then We’ll Rewrite The Stars, Wherever These Flowers May Grow)

Summary: A happily ever afterlife is interrupted by the distant past; Sausage receives another calling and is sent into a different mortal world from their old one, with Scott insisting on following so they won’t be separated. They both lead brand new lives but only Scott regains memories of the previous one on his own, and he isn’t allowed to remind Sausage about any of it without jeopardizing the mission the angel was sent to complete – a mission someone else was supposed to have dealt with.

(Also available on Ao3!)

[ Chapter One ] [ Chapter Two ] [ Chapter Three ]

[A/N: Two chapters in one day bonus because I’m experiencing burn out and need to forge on ahead.]

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Chapter Four

“This might be an even bigger revelation about where we are, if it can get through that barrier still up in your mind.” Scott held onto him all the way up to the patch of ‘unique’ flowers. “Does anything else about them seem familiar?”

Sausage gazed down at the blue and white flowers, but then shook his head.

Scott took on his second floran form, complete with a starflower in his hair. He carefully watched the aura around Sausage. “This memorial. The flowers. Our flowers, Sausage.”

Just as he had suspected, the silver part of Sausage’s aura flowed up around his head. “St-Starflowers. Angelflowers. Wait… This is THAT world?!”

“Yeah. I thought it was a crazy coincidence when I first realized—”

“Joel is THAT Joel?!” Sausage interrupted. “How did he not— Oh, right. Neither me or you look, uhh, whatever it is you are right now. I don’t remember that either.”

“Floran,” Scott said warmly. “It was honestly one of my favorites. It offered some unique opportunities, and fit right in with our love of beautiful gardens.”

Sausage hummed in agreement, then promptly plopped down on the ground and squished his face between his hands. “This is a lot,” he mumbled into his palms. “And… not all of it is making sense.”

“Sorry.” Scott changed himself back to his human appearance in case someone else happened to come across them, then sat down across from Sausage. “I don’t know what the entire plan is this time. This world now has new, thriving civilizations, built on top of what we did in the past. That other version of you mentioned centuries having passed – so maybe…” Scott pondered for a moment. “Maybe he was around when that corruption struck the land. Maybe he time-travelled to get here. What’s even in that white tower?”

“Oh, that was something I built based on a different kind of dream I had – sort of like being granted a vision by a god of creativity! A tower to greet the morning’s light after a good night’s sleep! There are a couple of special items in there… Um, one of them might have been able to allow entry from another reality, now that I think about it.”

“Let’s start there to see if we can get any clues.” Scott pointed to his left eye again. “We’re probably meant to do something about him, which might also help clear up your head and get you back to normal. I can now see your aura as well as your wings. You look like a bit of a confused mess, so obviously there’s more yet to be done.”

Sausage nodded and moved to get to his feet. Once standing, he cast about himself, checking his pocketspace. “The first thing I should do is ask the magic to give me a new Staff. Something tells me I’m going to need the power. Don’t know what that other guy is going to do with it, but maybe he has magic powers, too.”

They headed back and stopped off at the gifting tree. Upon Sausage’s request, a second Staff of Sanctuary appeared. He gingerly took hold of it, but he smiled when he could feel the magic pulsing through it as strongly as ever. However, he was very quiet as they made their way up through the white, mossy tower. Scott took it to mean Sausage was still processing everything, so he let him be, and meanwhile looked around at all the details inside the tower. Glowberry vines hung everywhere, with plenty of other greenery scattered around, and Scott would have figured it was just one more nature-themed portion of Sanctuary until they reached the landing that contained a pedestal directly in line with a window.

Scott could see it was swirling with a rainbow of different magics, but one that stood out the strongest was a dark gray stream of smoke. On top of the pedestal lay a single wither rose.

Sausage cautiously approached, then picked up the rose. His expression crumbled, and Scott saw wisps of pale blue encircle his head. He quickly stepped in and put his hand over the top of the rose. “Let’s try to stay focused. We’ll unpack anything else later. What is this thing?” Scott gestured to the pedestal.

“Part of it is a lodestone, to act as a guide for different energies.”

“Okay, that explains why I’m seeing every color of magic under the sun around it.”

“Are any in particular standing out?”

“It’s starting to dissipate now, but there’s gray smoke.”

“Gray smoke, black wither rose. That might have been his connection into this reality.”

Further explanations were cut off by the sound of an explosion in the distance. Sausage hurried to the window for a look. “I think that came from the Forgotten Cove!”

“Before he knocked me out of the window, he mentioned something about causing chaos. I’m thinking he has already started.”

“Let’s get after him before he hurts someone!” Sausage hopped up onto the window sill to take off with his foliage-covered elytra, then glanced back at Scott.

The disguised starborne shrugged. “I left mine at home. I can travel long distances without them as a starborne, but…” He gestured down at himself.

“You can borrow one from me! Back to the tree!” Sausage jumped to the floor and grabbed Scott’s hand, squeezing it once as they ran down the steps. He threw a hopeful smile Scott’s way. Scott shifted his hand to interlace their fingers and lightly squeeze back. They were halfway out of this mystery – halfway to returning Sausage’s memories of their life from before this.

The other half, however, was what worried Scott, and he recalled Pearl’s confession that there was something she wasn’t allowed to tell, and it relied on someone else not yet in this equation on his and Sausage’s end.

~*~

They tracked Sausage Supreme by the trail of destruction he left behind, as well as some of the other rulers complaining about Sausage – of the Sanctuary variety – pestering or outright bedeviling them by blowing up projects they had been working on, adding that they weren’t fooled by him changing outfits and pretending to be innocent. Sausage was consternated by the fact no one seemed to notice the difference between him and the other guy, but he wasn’t going to try to explain the concept of this particular case of different realities when he was still grappling in his own head to understand what was going on.

Finally, the two made their way to Chromia, where Scott was dismayed to see everything was overrun by llamas that had been let out of their garden by large holes in the walls. “I’ll worry about rounding them up and fixing that all later. How have we not caught up to him by now?!”

Rather than answer, Sausage took off again and made a beeline for Stratos. Scott gasped loudly as realization hit him.

Hermes was at Stratos. And with the way Joel sometimes left them unattended…

With daylight preventing him from accessing most of his starborne powers, Scott could only hurry after Sausage using his borrowed elytra.

Stratos had not gone undamaged. Wither roses surrounded the lore fountain and the water seemed to have been replaced with mud. But it was the row of signs in front of it that Sausage was staring at. “He’s been leading us on a chase as a distraction this whole time,” he said when Scott landed. He had his fists clenched tightly. “He’s got my boy. He went right back to Sanctuary. Let’s go!!”

Without waiting another second, Sausage flew toward the giant Nether portal in the center of Stratos. Scott followed but wished they had some kind of plan. Having his other scimitar might help, too, but he had forgotten about it with more important things going on. He hurried after Sausage into the portal, feeling the drag of the Nether’s heat and swiftly becoming uncomfortable due to its utter lack of a sky. He lost sight of Sausage, but stuck to the marked off path that led to Sanctuary’s portal.

He always hated going through the Nether, but with no one else to see at the moment he didn’t have a reason to suppress the weight of it on his breathing or have to be casual about how it made him slower. Except, now wasn’t the time to be slow; Sausage hadn’t waited for him and had already gone through the other portal. Scott kept the layout of its exit in mind as he flew into it.

He pulled up short at the edge of the platform. He could see them in the town square below already – Sausage Supreme to one side with Hermes in a cage behind him, the floor lined with copper to counteract the child’s storm-inspired powers, and Sausage was across from him, shouting for the villain to let Hermes go. The two Sausages were pointing their respective Staffs of Sanctuary at each other.

Scott carefully glided down, trying to remain out of sight in hopes of getting the drop on Sausage Supreme. Or, perhaps, he should try to free Hermes so there would no longer be leverage against Sausage and he could cut loose with the magic he intended to use; or maybe even unleash some angel power.

That hope was dashed when he saw Sausage become outlined by a red glow and be tossed up against a building. Not completely pinned though, Sausage lifted his arm and fired a bright blue bolt from his Staff toward Sausage Supreme, breaking his focus and disrupting the holding spell, allowing the Protector to drop to his feet. Then the spell slinging went into a full battle.

As he attempted to get closer, Scott had to shield his eyes. The feedback from his left one was starting to feel like an oncoming headache. He was about one street over from Hermes when Bubbles ran past him carrying a pickaxe in her mouth. She slipped right past Sausage Supreme’s notice and made it to the cage without any trouble.

Scott retreated behind cover. Maybe he wasn’t needed here, after all… But he would absolutely step in if it looked like Sausage was about to lose. Scott’s attacks would be weakened by the daylight, but even just the showy effect of a star strike could distract the villain long enough for Sausage to recover.

That is, if he didn’t end up incapacitated, himself, with how much ethereal energy was being revealed by his left eye. Sausage’s dual-mixed aura was surging and starting to blot out his features, while now Scott could see Sausage Supreme’s aura – itself a roiling combination of red, magenta, and gray. The bursts of magical energy from their spells made him clutch at his head; this was going to become overwhelming very quickly. “Pearl,” he muttered, “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea…”

He wasn’t sure he could keep up with everything enough to figure out where – or if – he even could lend a hand. He put his head down and squeezed his eyes shut, hoping a few seconds of not observing all that magic might help. He was drawn back to the battle, however, when he heard an angry cry.

He was now baffled by a new sight. Sausage’s aura was now split perfectly down the middle, silver on one side and pale blue on the other, which was also the side that held the Staff of Sanctuary. The villain’s aura was still a messy cloud, so it wasn’t as if something had happened that stabilized all the different energies.

Then a new figure’s aura crept into view from a different alleyway: small, diluted purple, and crackling with sparks. Scott tried to reach out but was too dizzy to even try stumbling over to stop them. Hermes. No. It isn’t safe!

The child’s aura crackled brighter. Scott squinted. Lightning shot forth, skewering through the red-magenta-gray conglomeration.

All right. Well. That could definitely be of help.

Scott then saw the hand on the silver side reach out to grasp the end of the lightning bolt. Silver flames erupted around the hand, and it trembled, but then the wrist rotated as if getting a better grip on a piece of rope and began to pull, dragging Sausage Supreme toward him.

The glow coming off of Hermes flickered, then went out as the remainder of the lightning was discharged. Scott could see the child unobscured now, tottering back a step with Bubbles at the side to lean on. Hermes seemed unharmed, merely out of power for the moment.

Meanwhile, Sausage Supreme’s aura shook from the side effects of the electricity. As he came within range, the pale blue hand struck its Staff of Sanctuary against the ground, releasing a pulse of energy; then it let go of the Staff, leaving it to stand upright on its own. Energy pulses continued to radiate from it, while the pale blue hand grasped hold of Sausage Supreme’s arm.

The pulses from the Staff grew brighter. Scott saw Hermes cover his eyes, and Bubbles laid down with a paw over her muzzle, so he knew he wasn’t the only one being overwhelmed by the light. He could no longer make out the difference in the two Sausages so he shut his eyes, placing an arm in front of them for good measure. He heard a sound like the reversed shattering of glass, then felt a final pulse of magic right down to his starborne bones. He hastily looked out across the square—

He saw only one figure now, with a mix of silver and pale blue churning around red, gray, and magenta. Those three colors were soon swallowed up, then, suddenly, the pale blue spread in a burst, forcing out the silver into a splatter across the ground. Scott’s stomach wrenched.

Yet then the silver gathered itself together and rose up into a small pillar of swaying flames. The fully-blue Sausage form didn’t seem to notice it and instead took the Staff of Sanctuary from where it still stood on its own. As he lowered it, the intense magic faded from the area, returning Scott’s vision to normal. He saw… just Sausage of Sanctuary again, no outline of wings or other auras as he crouched and held out his arms while Hermes ran over to him. “Hermes! ¡Mi querido hijo! You were so brave! And so strong! Yeah, no one is going to mess with you ever again!”

The pillar of flame seemed to be watching, then it turned and started drifting toward Scott. He felt a warm sensation on his hand and remembered the other rings he had intended to give Sausage. One of them was now beginning to glow. Scott ducked around a corner. When the pillar reached him, a tendril of flame extended toward him. Scott took off the glowing ring and held the tendril as if it were a hand, then slid the ring onto it.

The pillar shifted and took on a vague humanoid shape with wings. The head turned to look back at the Protector of Sanctuary and Hermes. Scott then heard his partner’s voice in his head, strongly confident without any of the earlier confusion or reluctance, albeit distant and ethereal. “They’re a nice family. I’m sure Hermes will grow up to do great things.”

Relieved that it seemed like his Sausage had emerged with all his memories back, Scott whispered, “You need to explain to me what, exactly, just happened. You weren’t the only one in there, were you? You got kicked out just now. What did I just see?”

“Can we… go somewhere else? I need a moment. It got really weird there for a while but I needed to just stay focused. And, um, I’m not quite myself right now.”

“I can see that! But at least you’re more yourself than you were twelve hours ago.”

As quickly and carefully as they could, they crossed the town square. The Protector of Sanctuary was chatting away with Bubbles as he carried a now sleepy-looking Hermes, probably on the way to put the child in bed for a nap. Having been leaning his head on the man’s shoulder, Hermes could see over it as Scott and the silver-flame version of Sausage snuck past. He raised his little hand and waved. Sausage the Seraph paused and waved back, then hurried after Scott.

Hermes leaned their head back down and hugged his papa.

“Oh, mi niñito tiene sueño. I love you, too! We’ll all go rest and then you can have cookies and pumpkin pie for dinner later!”

Once they had entered the Nether and crossed to Chromia’s portal, the angel-shaped silver flames leaned on the frame and sighed with gusto. “Whew! That was a lot! I don’t think I’ve had to deal with that much magical energy since that time Pearl sent me to the Twilight Forest to try to negotiate with a High Lich!”

“When she— What? Never mind. Tell me how I managed to miss the fact I might have been talking to two different Sausages the entire time we’ve been here.”

“I found out the same time as you – like ten minutes ago, right? Of course, now that I look back, there was a kind of feeling that another soul was there, but like it was half-asleep, or something, through everything.”

“I’m. I’m sorry, like it what?”

Sausage went quiet; Scott wasn’t sure if the crackling-flame sound he heard was coming from his partner or the Nether itself. Then Sausage drew a deep breath. His form solidified a little more, but still resembled an apparition. He held up the index finger of both hands. “Two souls, two versions of me, inside the same body.” He pressed the fingers together. “Living the same life, gaining the same experiences. …Until I started getting my memory back, and the other me’s own memories also started to surface.”

He moved one finger away by a centimeter. “And then a third version from a different reality showed up, but was actually a piece missing from the soul of the other me that I was sharing a body with. Then add the missing piece back in, and there’s no reason for me to keep being there.”

“I think I need a flow chart. Why would this world’s Sausage be missing a piece of his soul that was in a different… reality? What.”

Sausage sighed loudly in exasperation. “How should I know! I’ve got my own memories of the life you and I had together, and now the shared memories of growing up here! Remember how I forgot all about originally being from the celestial realm and being one of Pearl’s angels? The other soul didn’t have any memories I could access to find out, not that I even had time for that when I realized it was there! I was too busy wrangling lightning and trying to stuff the evil soul into the whole mess of Mythical Sausage energy! Look, look – it was like if you’ve got a cup of water that’s two-thirds full, and you need to add the remaining third, but that happens to overflow the cup because it turns out one portion is like a different density than the others. Like mixing oil and water. I was the portion that didn’t actually belong, but the portion also already in there didn’t have the… uh… adhesiveness? Mergeability? To get the missing part to stick. I think I’ve lost track of the metaphor, hold on…”

Scott could only stare at him helplessly, trying to get a grasp of the explanation.

Sausage appeared to scowl, then sighed again, this time in resignation. “I don’t think the other me was strong enough to get the job done. And you saw that other guy – no way could he be allowed to keep running free. Who knows what he would have done – if he ended up influencing Hermes, turn the kid into a demon or something – that would be horrible! And the only way to stop him was to put him back where he originally came from.”

“So,” Scott said softly, “What about Hermes, then? He’s… your son, too.” He gave a gentle chuckle. “A child of a god and an angel.”

Sausage’s expression turned lost for a moment. “I’m not…sure. Technically they’re the son of the me of this world, and Joel. I was kind of… an extra co-parent? I guess that I’m sort of like a built-in guardian angel. And what happened at the end there was me fulfilling that part of a guardian angel’s calling. Stop a demon from causing harm. Demon is gone, threat is over, I move on.”

“Wait, what do you mean a demon?”

“Oh, that guy had some serious demonic vibes going on! There was a bunch of demon power mixed into his soul! Come to think of it, maybe that’s also why I needed to be here…”

Scott gingerly touched Sausage’s arm. “Well, we know how things go when your calling ends. You could always check in on Hermes from the reflecting pool, like you did with me.”

“Yeah,” Sausage said with a bittersweet smile, his tone soft. “I’ll be able to do that much.”

“Plus, since Hermes is a demigod, there might come a day where he ventures into the celestial planes and pays a visit to Pearl’s realm.”

“Yeah. Yeah, that’s true.”

They stood in silence for another moment, then Scott said, “So I guess we’re done here. We can check with Pearl to see if there’s anything else, but maybe we can go home. Um, but at the very least, let’s get out of the Nether right now. Not a great environment for starbornes.” Scott grimaced, then held out a hand toward Sausage to walk him through the portal out into Chromia.

“I’m done, yes, but what about you?” Sausage asked as they stepped down onto the grass. “You still have a life here. Don’t you have anything you need to take care of? You still have Chromia to look after. Someone else is filling my shoes.”

Scott led the way toward the pond connected to the celestial realm, a little smirk crawling onto his face. “You know what? I think it’s time for the ruler of Chromia to go back to his adventuring days – who’s to say he didn’t simply disappear while hunting for another mysterious treasure?”

Someone called from behind them, “You would leave just like that, without saying goodbye first?”

They turned, both startled to have heard the voice of Sausage – the Protector of Sanctuary variety. He grinned as he trotted away from the Nether portal. “Where do you think you two are off to so fast?”

Scott pointed at himself and feigned confusion. “Us two?”

The Protector gestured toward the angel-shaped flames. “I can see him, too. We did just share a body for over two decades, even though I was asleep through most of it, and had you fill in until I was aware enough. I remember most of my past, now.” He nodded at Sausage the Seraph. “You must have had a similar experience, if they thought you were the one for the job.”

“Actually, I’ve figured it’s because I’m a really powerful angel, and that other guy had some demon energy mixed in! Could be a real challenge for the average reincarnated human, even if it’s a human version of me! No offense.”

“None taken. I’m glad for the help. Things got… messy, at my end. The big issue I now remember, involving my Pearl, well… She… ascended to godhood, but felt so much regret for being unable to help me when I was desperately trying to save her when the world was ending, that after she came to claim my soul at the end of my mortal life, she didn’t want to let me go when my soul was called back to this world. Before all that even happened, I had split the other guy off from my soul and banished him to a pocket dimension where he couldn’t hurt anyone – yeah, that’s a whole other story. But I guess the universe saw he would find a way to return to this reality, and I was needed to put an end to what I was responsible for creating. But Pearl – my Pearl – didn’t want me to have to deal with what was involved. So, the universe needed to balance things out after finally wresting me from her, so that’s where you came in.”

He sighed sadly. “She meant well. She got involved before, when I did something else kind of stupid.” The Protector then smiled weakly. “She means a lot to me, too, so I can’t really blame her. I don’t have a way to talk to her directly right now, but I hope she’s looking in and can see that it all went just fine!”

Scott put a hand on the Protector’s shoulder. “We need to get back to our own Pearl. I think she might have known what your Pearl had done, and was upset but couldn’t let it show. We need to let her know that everything did work out.”

The Protector placed his hand over Scott’s. “So… what actually are you?” He looked at him a little sadly. “Are you from another reality, too, and not just some cool star-powered hero from here?”

Scott nodded. “Yes, I’m from his reality. We have a tendency to follow each other around.”

He grinned over at Sausage the Seraph, who came closer to rest a hand-shaped flame on the Protector’s other shoulder. “Take good care of Hermes for me. And if Joel ever gets his memory back, ask him about the two spirits of the forest who came to rest in a bamboo jungle near a rock outcropping. He might be able to explain where those flowers came from, after all.”

The Protector seemed to mull that over, then looked between the two in wonder.

~*~

Scott and Sausage the Seraph continued on their way to the pool by the shed only to find it ringed by glowstone and the light from the water giving off so much supernatural radiance that Scott started to get a migraine within seconds. He covered his left eye and motioned for Sausage to enter the pool. Rather than extinguish his flames, he merely passed through. Scott hopped in after him without hesitation. The glowstone shattered behind him, returning the water to that of a simple decorative pond.

On the other side Sausage stood restored to his normal, solid angelic appearance. He looked himself over and sighed in relief. “Wow, that was convenient! For a minute there I was worried I would need a whole new vessel! How about you?”

He turned to Scott, who was still in his Chromian human form. “Well, I kind of still like this coat, but it clashes a little with the purple.” He waved a hand over his face and head, turning his eyes violet and hair shimmery purple, with the tiny constellation also returning to view.

Sausage studied him for a moment. “Hey, so, what is up with your eye? Is that some starborne thing we didn’t know about before, or just some extra magic you picked up along the way in that world?”

“The second thing, technically. It was Pearl’s doing, to be honest. My, um, eye got stolen by a creepy skull artifact and a wizard tricked me claiming he could get my original eye back from it, but according to Pearl he was going to sneak a fake one in, but she intervened in time to imbue it with magic first, to give me an edge in aiding you. I’m not actually sure how much it helped in the end, since I got overwhelmed by all the soul auras and magical energy around and couldn’t fight.”

“Well, I still think I was meant to handle that final part by myself – er, me and the other me.” Sausage then smirked. “Couldn’t stay away, could you? You followed me.”

“Do you really think I was going to wait decades to see you again? I don’t care how immortal we are like this. I don’t have that kind of patience.” Scott smirked right back at him.

They stepped toward each other to embrace, but then Pearl appeared and got between them. She turned to Scott and pressed the palm of her hand over his left eye. Scott uttered a quiet noise of discomfort as mild pain swelled around his eye socket, but as it faded, he could tell the input from that eye had returned to the way it was before the incident with the skull.

Pearl smiled awkwardly. “Sorry, I had to wait until you came back to this realm for me to be able to fully restore it for you.” She then turned to Sausage with an even more pained look.

“Everything worked out fine, Pearl!” Sausage announced cheerfully. “I mean, that did get a little weird when I started remembering my life and the other me’s at the same time – but it’s pretty cool knowing there’s another me who led a different type of life, all mortal and plain and stuff! Well, aside from the magic. That’s not plain or boring!”

The pained expression on her face remained.

“Uh. Pearl?” Sausage asked, confused as to why she hadn’t even hugged them upon their return.

Pearl walked to the reflecting pool and waved a hand over it, then said softly, “Sausage, do you remember when I told you about my old world, and how I had a friend I had to leave behind?”

“Uhm, yeah?”

The pool resolved into the image of a sepia-toned scene of swaying stalks of wheat. “When he reached the end of his mortal life, I went down to collect his soul before a reaper could come to try to send it to the Plane of Souls…”

“Oh, this sounds familiar! Wait, are you saying you’re the Pearl that the other me was talking about??” Sausage’s eyes went wide. “I thought he meant another, parallel Pearl! Like how I’m a parallel version of him, but I’m an angel instead of a human with incredible magical powers!” He uttered a brief chortle, pleased with the idea of any parallel version of himself being powerful in some way, but when Pearl failed to smile, he stopped. “Uhm. Is there something else to this that I’m missing?”

Pearl glanced toward the pool. “Do you remember when I said you were so much like my old friend?”

Sausage nodded then exchanged looks with Scott.

“It’s… because you are him. I did something similar to that other Pearl. I put that soul into a brand-new angel vessel. I just wanted to have you by my side and at peace here, doing what you loved to do back in the mortal realm. My architect.” She turned toward Sausage again and reached out to gently touch him under the chin, then withdrew her hand. “But you also became angel-coded because of that vessel, so when you received a calling, I couldn’t do anything about it, and had to let you answer it, then wait for you to complete your journey through a new mortal world.”

She took a deep breath. “The other version of me wasn’t so willing to let her boy go. He didn’t get put in a new vessel. She just hoarded his soul somewhere. The threat he needed to face was something you had also dealt with in your original mortal life, but it was properly resolved, and there was no chasing down fractured pieces of your soul. And yet, your soul was similar enough that the higher powers that be enlisted you for this job.”

Sausage stared, dumbfounded. “Uh— Wait— You mean, some of those memories might actually have been mine, and not his?”

Pearl nodded. “I can’t say how much of it was one or the other.” She gave another weak smile. “I don’t have that much insight into what’s in your head.”

“So, Mythland—?”

“Was a kingdom you built up and restored in some places. Do you want to see it?” Pearl gestured to the pool.

Sausage shook his head. “No. I’d rather leave that in the past. I have what I have now.” He took Scott’s hand and held it tightly. “And also, I, um, think I need to sit down.” He started to glance around in distress, but Scott swiftly guided him over to the wicker throne to sit at its base.

The starborne was silently digesting all of this. It didn’t change how he felt, even if this was a whole new side of Sausage that he was finding out about. In fact, Scott let out a little laugh. “Does this mean you’re actually several hundred years older than me?”

“I don’t know,” Sausage mulled it over, the distraction perfectly timed. “Does it count that I sort of started over as an angel, like we started over in that world? Hey, Pearl – did you know that was the same world you sent us to as florans? And Joel didn’t recognize either of us! What are the odds of him losing his memory of the past when me and the other me had our memories sealed away! Can you imagine what would have happened if we all remembered at the same time? Hey, speaking of that – Scott, did you know the whole time, or did you get to have a little vacation from the past, too?”

As he babbled on, Pearl and Scott were both relieved that the revelations hadn’t dampened his spirits any. Pearl even chuckled to herself. Yup, Sausage was the same as always, no matter what form he was in. There might be more to unpack another time, but for now she was happy to indulge his enthusiastic ponderings.

~The End~

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[Post A/N: The story of Sausage of Sanctuary, as well as more revelations about which Sausage, exactly, he is, will be continued in the crossover “Thou, O Kings, Fair Be You All” coming soon!]

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Translations for this chapter:

¡Mi querido hijo! = My dear son!

mi niñito tiene sueño = my little boy is sleepy

#alsmp #alsmp fanfic #alsmp shipping #scosage #empires smp #empiressmpshipping #mythicalsausage #scott smajor #dangthatsalongname #sausage supreme #empires hermes #empires smp fanfic #soul liminality 2 #lunar yarns

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lunarsands · 11 months

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Empires SMP Fanfic: Thou, O Kings, Fair Be You All Pt 2

Afterlife SMP and Empires SMP S1 and S2 crossover super combo!!! (again noted here to save the title field, but Empires SMP S2 inspired the idea so I’m filing it under Empires)

Title: Thou, O Kings, Fair Be You All

Characters: MythicalSausage, Scott Smajor, Sausage Supreme, along with MythicalSausage, and MythicalSausage, featuring MythicalSausage, as well as MythicalSausage, plus MythicalSausage

Relationships: MythicalSausage/Scott Smajor

Tags: action, a bit of fluff WARNINGS: Violence, Injury, Death (of the villain), body horror

Summary: The Tyrant King arrives in Sanctuary, and another battle for the safety of the future begins. Sausage vows to stand his ground and do everything he can, which includes calling for aid from some very familiar faces...

Takes place after: Along the Roads to Sanctuary, Hellbent, The Future Foretold, and Who’s The Unfairest Of Us All and includes characters from Night of the Winter Stars

(Also available on Ao3!)

[ Part One ]

[A/N: True facts I actually had this written out shortly after Sausage’s S2 finale but I needed to finish setting it up in Along the Roads to Sanactuary, otherwise this might have been posted sooner. XD I was honestly going a little nuts having to sit on it, but the plot points were important for this one to make sense. As much sense as throwing a bunch of AU versions of the same character into one fic already makes, that is.]

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Part Two

The Seraph shot past Sausage Supreme to hover over the Protector, and called down, “We’re short one!”

“Huh?” The Protector looked up as he finished casting the spell Lord Sausage had requested.

“I had a vision shortly before I was teleported here! Are you sure you summoned everyone you wanted to be here to help??”

“I— Yeah? We don’t have time for that! Get ready! I have a plan!” The Protector raised the Staff of Mythland in one hand, and the Staff of Sanctuary in the other. “Grab ‘hero over there and get above him, then we can strike from the ground.”

Lord Sausage raised his sword and nodded.

The Seraph swooped around and scooped up the Superhero, leaving The Wither to finish steadying itself, then the two shot up high, angling directly into the sun to use it to force Sausage Supreme to have to squint to see them if he intended to track them. “Hit him with a blast of gravi when I call down some fire,” the Seraph instructed.

The Superhero nodded. “Got it. You can toss me up if you need a hand free – I can float for longer if I need to. On three…”

“One…”

“Two…”

“Three!”

Up went the Superhero. Down pointed the Seraph’s sword. Angling from the sky came a bolt of holy fire. It struck a new barrier that shimmered around Sausage Supreme, but as the flames scorched over it, the magic itself began to bubble and crack. The Superhero posed both palms downward as if pushing on something, and this time, Sausage Supreme dropped as the magical barrier shattered. With that job done, the holy fire dissipated.

Sausage Supreme created a new barrier beneath him to keep from being slammed into the ground, but then Lord Sausage leapt in to distract him from completing the full barrier bubble by engaging another swordfight. Sausage Supreme attempted to take advantage of the fact that he had a shield and the other didn’t, but Lord Sausage merely blocked with his right arm, letting the saber skim sparks off the metal.

fWhip would probably yell at him for using the prosthetic this way, but the spell was holding, preventing any damage – for now. He merely needed to buy time for the others. Unfortunately, this tactic also meant he would be in the way of the two with the aerial abilities. So, he just had to hold out until the Protector could cancel out the magic Sausage Supreme was able to access.

From the corner of his eye Lord Sausage saw the black-cloaked figure swing into an alley between the two closest buildings, then he caught the motion of a skeletal finger beckoning him. He doubled his efforts, hammering at Sausage Supreme’s shield to drive him in that direction. He blocked an answering strike with his arm, and then shoved hard. He flinched as the move caused a strain where the prosthetic was secured to the remainder of his upper arm, and he had to hop back a step.

It had been enough, however. The Wither lunged from the alleyway and wrapped its arms around Sausage Supreme in a macabre embrace, aligning one hand over the center of his chest.

He howled in rage but The Wither held tight even as he bucked his whole body to try to dislodge the specter. “Not this time, you ghoul! You won’t be having my soul! Take this instead!”

A tattered dark green and ashen gray orb was ejected from Sausage Supreme’s body into The Wither’s hand with enough force to bend its wrist backward. The Wither’s hand twitched as if it was struggling to contain the soul – or trying to stop it from escaping. “No! It must remain—!”

“This body is MINE now!” Sausage Supreme proclaimed. “Do your job, reaper, and ferry that one away!” He began to bunch up his muscles in preparation to throw The Wither off of him.

Lord Sausage took a gamble and slashed the tip of his sword across the villain’s face, drawing only a small line of blood but causing a distraction again. The Wither’s arms tightened with a creaking sound, both hands positioned to shove the orb back inside Sausage Supreme’s body. Red eyes bulged for a second, and the soul was returned where it belonged… but his was not displaced by it, and with an angry roar magic crackled over him again, bursting outward in a radius around him, loosening The Wither’s hold then sending both it and Lord Sausage to the ground in opposite directions.

The Superhero then landed with a surprisingly heavy thud onto the street, having been clinging to a roof after his previous boost had run out. He darted around throwing punches of gravi, knocking Sausage Supreme’s head back and forth with the barrage, although the villain was able to keep on his feet despite how he staggered.

A sudden smirk appeared and he dodged the next punch, then he whipped his arm out to slam the edge of his shield into the Superhero’s gut.

He was shocked to find that the move had no effect; rather than push the Superhero a step, or make him flinch or cough or groan, what it actually did was make Sausage Supreme feel like he had just tried to punch a giant boulder.

Meanwhile, the Superhero smirked right back – and then threw a punch directly at Sausage Supreme’s chest. Magic crackled and prevented the fist from connecting, but the gravi-blast itself sent him skidding into the wall behind him, resulting in a rain of dirt from the plant boxes overhead.

As the air cleared, Sausage Supreme chortled. He wiped at the cut on his cheek. “A few lucky hits! But I’m still standing, and you’re going to start running out of tricks! You’re all still just an army of one!”

“You’re only standing because of power you stole from others!” the Protector declared as he stepped forward, a shimmering green barrier of his own now around him. “You even had to steal from a demon! You were never that powerful on your own! And I would know best, because you’re still only just a piece of me!”

“What are you going to do from in there?” Sausage Supreme mocked, “Lecture me to death? You’re not going to get a chance to merge this piece of me! I’ve—!”

The Seraph brought his sword down from overhead as he abruptly landed in front of the villain. Sausage Supreme blocked with his saber and began to push back, his blade crackling with shielding magic again, but then the Seraph shot upward – and the Superhero darted in, a fistful of gravi leading. Sausage Supreme jerked his head to the side. The thrown fist ended up going straight into the wall.

The villain laughed as he danced aside, then he started to bring his broadsword down toward the Superhero’s unarmored head. Lord Sausage stepped in, taking the blow on his arm. There was a pop and a sizzle, but he stood his ground long enough for the Superhero to pull his hand out of the wall. Then the two split off from the fight as the Seraph swooped in a second time.

With the sound of blades clashing behind them and a need to press his prosthetic against his side, Lord Sausage fell back to where the Protector stood. “How’s that dissolution spell coming along?! We can swat at him all we want, but he’s too well-protected to actually bring him down!”

“Almost got it,” the Protector assured. “I’m just waiting to get a lock on his magical frequency. It has been altered by all the stuff he’s gotten into, so it’s not, um, like slightly to the left of mine anymore.” He placed the end of the Staff of Sanctuary on the ground, staring intently at Sausage Supreme as he did so, and tracked his movement as he battled the Seraph. The Protector then released it and it remained standing on its own. He then held the Staff of Mythland in both hands and lined it up with the middle of the Staff of Sanctuary’s crook.

“Magic of Sanctuary, hear me… We cannot return the magic to those who once held it, but it does not belong in this man’s hands. Help me to reclaim it from him and to disperse it back into the world.”

A brilliant glow engulfed the top of the Staff of Sanctuary, while a beam shot from the tip of the Staff of Mythland. It curved around to follow Sausage Supreme’s path until it could strike the barrier around his weapons, producing a new, greener glow.

“What?” Sausage Supreme stared at this change in the energy’s color. The Seraph broke away, then - when the glow and the barrier disappeared - he struck again, and soon the villain was facing him with only his own strength. His arms trembled with each following blow; a mere mortal was no match for an angel. He gritted his teeth and swung at a wing instead, taking the Seraph’s next strike on his shield, although the hit ended up denting the center of the shield.

The bracer he wore sparked again. Thin ropes of glowing magic flowed out along his limbs. He laughed and matched the Seraph’s next attack with double the strength of before, forcing him to give ground.

“What?” the Protector cried, “Why didn’t it work?!”

“Oh, it did,” Sausage Supreme threw the comment over his shoulder, “But that was only one sliver of the magic I now hold. I’ve absorbed hundreds of types of magic! You can’t just pull all of them out so easily!” His laughter grew louder and he raised the arm sporting the bracer. It gave off a glow brighter than the Staff of Sanctuary, and even the Seraph had to shade his eyes to make sure he kept the villain in sight.

There was a sting across one of his wings as a dark blade streaked past – along with a figure that mimicked his own silhouette. The blade cut through the glowing light—

Cut through the bracer—

There was a hiss like something dissolving in lava, then the bracer fell to the ground, its glow fading out. Sausage Supreme stared down at it in disbelief. “No! It was supposed to be indestructible!!” A black substance oozed over the bracer, causing the golden sheen to rapidly become dull then crumble. He whipped around, trying to find the culprit. “Which one of you managed to do that?! Curse you—!”

“Too late,” growled a voice from above. “I’m already cursed.”

All eyes went to a balcony where a second angel was perched, although his wings were jet black and he lacked any fancy armor, clothed instead in a sleeveless and dingy, tattered outfit. “Are you fools done yet? Or do you need me to finish him off?” Myth glowered down at the similar, if less scarred, faces that matched his own.

It was The Wither who responded, “That will not be necessary.” Sausage Supreme turned a defiant snarl toward it, but was instantly met by the bony hand thrusting into his chest and yanking out a pulsating red orb with yellow blotches and threads of magenta running throughout it. The Wither’s hand shook, but it dug the sharp tips of its fingers into the orb. “Not. This. Time,” it rasped. It then plunged its other hand into the villain’s chest and removed the second soul that had been shown off earlier. “And we will also not risk another corruption.”

There was a creak as its fingers tightened even more on the red orb. Eyes glittered then flashed inside the hood, then came an angry, strained inhaling noise. The others knew the sound of the specter’s namesake. The pulsating motion of the first orb increased, then the threads of magenta brightened. They disappeared in a small burst of matching-colored light, then the splotches of yellow seemed to writhe. The entire orb began to resemble what a frantically beating heart might look like. The Wither’s eyes flashed again. The colors peeled away from the orb like a rapidly blooming flower, only to shrivel, wilt, and be reabsorbed back into it.

To a one, all of the other Sausages suddenly gripped at their chests. The now-dull-and-gray orb clutched in The Wither’s merciless grasp collapsed in on itself until The Wither crushed whatever was left of it in its fist.

The Protector dropped the Staff of Mythland. The light atop the Staff of Sanctuary winked out, then it fell to the ground, too. He drew in one quick breath, staring down at them, then he looked toward The Wither again.

The specter of death pulled back its hood, confirming that it did, indeed, resemble the rest of them – minus the partially exposed blackened skull. Then it opened its mouth and started to consume the second soul.

The Seraph and the Superhero traded mortified, knowing looks. Lord Sausage went slightly pale. Myth gave an ugly frown. After completely swallowing the soul, The Wither glanced at the empty body beside it. With a tap of its hand, it let the body fall into the dirt. Then it pulled its hood back up over its head.

The Wither turned to the Protector. “So, this is where your quest led you to? I sense that much time has passed, yet this is our world – yours and mine, that is. I remember you looking more like…” It swung toward Lord Sausage. “…That. Except for the peculiar arm. And older, of course.” It turned back to the Protector. “Perhaps I should have known right away that this gathering was your doing; who else would be able to pull me from our pocket reality? And yet, these others...?”

The Protector smiled. “Call it a chain of connections that pulled in who we needed.”

The Seraph folded his injured wing forward to check the wound. As he had expected, the feathers around it were stained with ichor. “Yeah, about that…” He turned and pointed his sword up at Myth. “Why did you wait so long to step in?! If one swipe was all you needed to break the source of his power, why wait? Or were you sizing us up to see who to pick off next?! I knew you would be here, somewhere!”

“Don’t start with me, shiny knight!” Myth’s foot shifted on the edge of the railing.

“No, I will! Answer me! We all knew what we were here for the second we arrived! But you were off hiding!” The Seraph’s wings flared wide.

The Superhero patted his hands against the air in a placating gesture as he moved in front of the others, while The Wither drifted over to the Protector’s side. “Uh, guys? Can we not—”

Myth cut him off with an accusation thrown at the other angel. “So is this gathering also to eliminate any of us seen as undesirable? One down, I guess that leaves me to go! Just make sure you send soul-devourer over there to my world to finish off Smajor, when you’re done with me!”

The Seraph adjusted his grip on his sword, then braced his legs in preparation to launch himself upward. “It still didn’t have to be this way, but you just won’t let go of revenge!”

Myth’s mouth twisted into resentful rage, then he leapt downward, blade aimed at the other angel.

The others watched them clash, but neither of the ones capable of flight were inclined to get in the middle of all the wings and fury.

Lord Sausage sheathed his sword so he could cradle his prosthetic arm. “Wow, those two got some major beef, huh?”

“I… didn’t know about that…” the Protector said, chagrined. “Um, is your arm okay?” The Superhero and The Wither looked over at the other human, as well.

Lord Sausage smiled down ruefully. “Can’t open the fingers right now, I’ll have to wait to get home for a repair. But it held up pretty good, all things considered! I don’t do much battling anymore these days, other than training my eldest son in sword fighting.”

The Superhero ran his gaze over the metal limb again. “Wait… That’s not just armor?”

“Nope!” Lord Sausage chirped cheerfully. He shifted his shoulder then pulled the prosthetic off – since the redstone signals were only half-working anyway – and held it by the forearm section while raising his remaining stub. “Fake arm! I tell you, though, you can get so many jokes out of this thing! The kids love it.” He carefully slipped the prosthetic back on; removing it didn’t cause a reboot as he had half-hoped, so he held it against his side again. “My favorite is always joking about giving them ‘a hand’ with something, and then just putting this down on the table. My brother-in-law has the best puns about it, too. Always fun visiting him.”

“Brother-in-law?” the Protector questioned. He appeared thoughtful for a second, then said quietly, “So…not Pearl, then.” He smiled weakly. “You married Gem.”

“Gem? No! fWhip only created this. My brother-in-law is Xornoth, I married Scott!”

The blissful declaration drew the attention of the Superhero and the Seraph – although the latter immediately had to return his focus to Myth as the cursed angel took the opportunity to lash out with a kick, knocking the Seraph into the side of a balcony.

The Superhero shook his head. “Maybe now isn’t the time for comparing lives. We need to do something about them before this gets out of control. You two stay back, maybe I can do something to break this up.”

The Protector nodded and picked up the Staff of Sanctuary. “All right, I’ll try to give you a hand in a minute.”

Lord Sausage turned to pick up the Staff of Mythland and said deadpan, “Sorry, I can’t help you there, I’ve only got one left.” Disparaging looks were thrown his way. He grinned, then suggested, “Well, maybe just send them – and us – back where we came from before this does get messy. Uh, messier.”

The Protector leveled the Staff of Sanctuary and tried to point the tip toward the angels, but couldn’t get a bead on only one of them. “I could try, if they would stay still and separate for just one minute! I’m pretty sure I can just reverse what I did, but I don’t want to somehow accidentally send them to the same reality! I’m not sure I have it in me to go double-checking to make sure there’s only one Mythical J. Sausage per universe! Maybe with a little more boost of magic, I could definitely be sure, but I need a few more minutes to recharge after dispelling the other guy’s barrier…”

The superhero sighed and pulled his goggles down over his eyes. “Fine, I’ll buy you some time. Not entirely sure I wanted to do this, but if someone’s got to throw their weight around to stop a couple of angels who are that powerful, it’ll have to be me…”

In a mere blink he was suddenly level with the two angels—

Then between them.

Swords that were meant to strike each other landed to either side of the Superhero, but both were stopped cold as the edge of the blades seemed to just… get stuck against his exosuit. He twisted his arms around and grasped a blade in each hand. There was a rumble from up above, then a lightning bolt struck him – and while the electricity cascaded harmlessly over him, it flowed along the weapons to zap each angel in the hand, forcing them to let go of the swords. Then, with a rapid punch packed with more strength than only gravi would have allowed and dealt to one of them, then to the other, he sent both of them flying backward into the side of buildings with enough force to embed them into the walls. “Now, CUT IT OUT, you two!”

He dropped the weapons and appeared to hover in midair, almost as if he, too, was flapping a pair of wings to keep him aloft.

The Seraph hastily pried himself out of the indentation his impact had created. “What in the Nether… Hey! By any chance, did you get stuck in a limbo dimension and emerge with all your past powers?”

The Superhero glared at him sternly. “No. I’ve always had all of them.”

Myth growled as he levered himself out, leaving behind an imprint of his wings via splattered ichor. “I’m getting tired of hearing how I ended up with the shortest straw!” He launched forward again.

The Seraph followed suit to intercept him, bringing up his shield with the intention of ramming the cursed angel.

The Superhero hit them both with another powerful blast of gravi, slamming them right back into the buildings a second time. Bits of brick and terracotta rained down. “Sorry!” he called to the Protector. “I’ll fix those later!”

The Protector frowned and muttered, “Do I have to worry about all three of them wrecking the place? …With parallel versions like these, who needs enemies?”

“Unfortunately,” Lord Sausage commented, “I think those two were already enemies, or something. Maybe they’re just taking the whole ‘light vs dark’ thing too literally?”

The Superhero used reverse gravi to pull the angels away from the walls toward him, then froze the gravity around them, keeping a hand against each’s chest. “Whatever the argument is that you have with each other, you better stop it, now. We were brought here to help. Fighting with each other makes us no better than the guy we just defeated. We’re better than that. We were meant to overcome insidious impulses. That’s what we exist for.”

“Oh, shut up, hero,” Myth spat. “Just more high-and-mighty speeches! You’re just another one who managed to get lucky. Let’s see those wings of yours! I bet they’re all bright and shiny, just like our other overpowered counterpart over there!”

The Superhero lowered his head, then gritted his teeth. “I lost them.” He then looked up with an adamant scowl and flicked both wrists downward, flinging the angels to the ground. He followed afterward and landed with a resounding thud, creating a crater of his own while remaining on his feet.

The Seraph coughed but remained laying on the ground. “I’m getting a feeling that none of us are in any way normal… And we’ve got the baggage to go with it.”

Myth, meanwhile, was already attempting to get up. “Let me guess, hero… Did losing your wings have anything to do with a certain vampire?” He then started to look around for his sword.

The Superhero pointed at him in warning. “Don’t. Move.”

“Oh, calm down. I already got my backside handed to me by him when he got four powers at once. I’m not messing with someone with ten. …Gods, at least it’s not thirty. If you turn out to have the abilities of a blazeborn, I’m out.”

The Seraph lifted his head enough to look at the Superhero. “So… all ten at once? What does that even work out to?”

The Superhero began ticking the details off on his fingers. “Flight of an elytrian, decay of a wither, gravity manipulation of a gravital, lightning of a thunderborn, scale walls like a crawler, durability of a goolien, strength and weight of a giant, speed of an inchling, vision of an owl, and holy fire of an angel. I don’t always use all of them aggressively, it’s mentally exhausting. Gravital is kind of just best for containing some of the passively active ones – like balancing contradictions of really heavy giant and really light inchling and angel.”

Lord Sausage stepped forward, resting the head of the Staff of Mythland against his shoulder. “Powers this, powers that… I have the power of being an awesome dad. All my kids are very well-behaved, which is more than I can say for you guys. I can’t speak for what your realities are like, but I’m sure we’ve all had challenges, and some worse than others.” He placed the Staff under the elbow of his prosthetic, using it to lift it to make a point. “Mine cost me an arm, but it could have cost even more than that. It could have been the entire world. But I made a sacrifice, and it kept the world safe from… a monster. And I’d now like to get back to keeping it safe, without any more fights with myself.”

Myth stared hard at him for a moment, then sat back down and folded his wings in. “I need my sword before I go, if that’s okay with all of you.”

The Superhero went to get it for him from where it had landed earlier. He frowned as a touch to the hilt stung his hand, but then he remembered Lord Sausage’s words about making sacrifices, and he wondered what Myth might have sacrificed to end up in the condition he was in. He encased the sword in a bubble of gravi and floated it toward the cursed angel.

Meanwhile, The Wither drifted over to the Seraph as he finally sat up. It gingerly touched his wing where Myth had sliced into his feathers. The Seraph looked on in surprise as the ichor and damage from the unholy blade was drawn out, dissipating into smoke when it reached The Wither’s hand, leaving his feathers unblemished. His own healing ability kicked in to close the wound.

“Thank you,” he said, feeling slightly awkward. He wanted to ask about the void in its aura, but wondered if it was his place to do so. He was beginning to get the sense that this particular version had never been anything close to a mortal to begin with.

He stood up and tried to put the words for the question together in his mind. White eyes glittered inside the hood as The Wither gazed up at him, then it rasped, “It is comforting to see a version of me as an angel. Maybe being with my love would have been more acceptable if I looked like that, instead of this, but I, too, had a duty that needed to be performed. And, perhaps, being who I am brought the balance of judgement that was necessary.”

The Seraph gave a sympathetic look, knowing about that conflict of life and undeath, and of finding a time for love somewhere between the two. He then turned to retrieve his sword.

The Protector heaved a loud sigh. “Okay, I feel recharged enough. Who wants to go first?”

Myth said, “Me first.”

At the exact same time the Seraph demanded, “Him first”, while pointing at the cursed angel. They traded glares.

“Well, at least you’re in agreement,” the Protector said cheerfully.

Myth narrowed his eyes. “I have to get back to guarding a monster. Priorities. The rest of you seem like you have leisure time. Don’t ever disturb me again,” he warned.

“I’ll do my best not to,” the Protector assured him. He tapped the end of the Staff of Sanctuary on the ground. Myth disappeared without further comment.

The Wither briefly held up a hand. “I would appreciate if I could go next. My love will be worried, since we expected to never hear from you again.”

The Protector rubbed the back of his head. “Ah, yeah, we didn’t part on the best terms, did we?”

“You needed to follow your heart. That is not always something that can be reasoned with. Be well, Sausage of Sanctuary. Perhaps we may yet meet again.”

The Protector smiled, then nodded, and tapped the Staff again. After The Wither disappeared, he pointed from the Seraph to Lord Sausage. “I’d like a word with you two, so him next.” He pointed to the Superhero, who stepped forward, but then the Seraph put a hand on his shoulder for a moment.

“Don’t give up on Scott,” the angel advised. “Whatever he happens to be right now, there is a brighter light inside.”

The Superhero gave him half a smile. “I know. I’ll keep trying to draw it back out.”

The Protector tapped the Staff a third time. Then he looked at Lord Sausage. “I know you need to get back to yours kids, so just a quick question – have you had to deal with any rebellious teen phases yet? Or are they not old enough for that?”

“Well, I’ve got one that’s already a teen, and another who will be there soon, but they’re both gentle-hearted boys. My oldest girl, thought, she takes after me, and I don’t know if you remember what we were like when we hit ten years old – I mean, if elven ten-year-olds are the same as human ones – so that’s coming up. Now, on the other hand, I’ve got two five-year-old girls, so I might try to nip the rebelliousness in the bud, because two of them at the same time? Ohgod.”

The Protector laughed. “Yeah, you’ve got more than a handful there, huh? I really only asked because my oldest abruptly hit the teenage years and told me and his other dad that we were terrible parents, then flew off. I figured the only thing I could really do is give them space to think things through, and welcome him home with a hug if they wanted it.”

Lord Sausage grimaced. “You let him fly off??”

“He’s a demigod with the power of lightning, I couldn’t exactly stop them.”

“I’m just going to have to wish you luck with that. As far as I know, all of mine are either elven or human! So that one might be out of my league. Hey, so, what are your other two? You said one was a…?”

“A robot. The other is a goblin child. We’ve got all sorts here in Sanctuary! Everyone is welcome – as long as they keep it peaceful, that is.” The Protector winked, then tapped the Staff a fourth time. With only the Seraph left standing before him, he gave a tired smile. “My past caught up with me a second time. Thanks for helping again.”

“Please just tell me there aren’t any other pieces out there. I don’t know how many more – how should I put this – disagreeable versions of us I can deal with. That’s the third time I’ve encountered Myth. He and I both would prefer to never see each other again. As you could tell, we ended up on opposite sides of the scale. It… hurts to see that kind of outcome, but where I can help you, I can’t do anything for him at this point.”

“Well… since he doesn’t seem interested in disrupting reality like Sausage Supreme was doing, I think we just leave him alone. I probably shouldn’t try to explain the chain of connections I mentioned earlier. I’ll just say that I called in back up, and the magic called in even bigger back up.”

“Huh… Well, anyway, I was going to ask how Hermes was doing, but, um…”

“Yeah. They’ll come around. All his family is here, and giving them too many cookies wasn’t the worst thing we’d done.” The Protector grinned, since the Seraph also had a hand in that.

“Tell them his other dad said hi.” The Seraph gave a chuckle, then nodded as the Protector lifted the Staff a final time.

~*~

Afterlife, SL Variant

Myth threw his sword at the table as soon as he entered the chamber made from deepslate, netherbrick, and blackstone. It clattered loudly, then skittered off onto the floor due to the force of the bounce after it collided with the wall.

The sound drew the attention of his prisoner, who stuck his arms out through the bars of the window in the iron door of his cell and let them casually hang down. “And where have you been? I saw some bright light from out there—” Smajor gestured toward the far end of the chamber where Myth had just come in from. “—and thought we had visitors again. I yelled but you didn’t bother to answer. I didn’t hear anything else, so I figured you went for a walk instead of maybe getting attacked and eaten by something.”

“I was off helping to kill someone else for a change.”

“Helping? You?” Smajor leaned his face close to the bars and raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t think you had a cooperative bone left in your body. Celestial realm still counting on you for something, huh? Wow, that would have been inconvenient if they snatched you while I was out. Who knows what I would have done if you weren’t back to watch over me!”

“It’s not likely to happen again, so don’t get your hopes up.”

“Ooh, maybe some grand force will snatch me away some day, so I get to play around again! …Or maybe just get some freakin’ fresh air,” Smajor complained through clenched teeth as he gripped the bars.

Myth threw him a warning glare. “It wasn’t some ‘grand force’ or anyone from the celestial realm. It was another version of me. He called on a bunch of us. So, you know, our goody-good shiny doubles aren’t the only ones out there.”

“Oh, great. Glowing purple me wasn’t there, was he?”

“No, no variants of you, thank the Nether. I didn’t need to see any other versions of me fawning over other versions of you. But at least one of them also had a fight going with you.” Myth frowned in thought. “There were two – well, I guess three – who didn’t have powers like us. They looked like ordinary humans, but had magic to fight with. It seemed really strange for them to be so different when, before, we met those two who were exactly like us. Aside from the not hating each other part.” He then went quiet and sat down to think to himself about everything that had occurred.

Smajor perked up and rested his hands on the inside ledge of the window. “That is a great story! Thanks for telling me! I’m so NETHER-BLASTED BORED, you know!”

“Quiet down. Maybe the rest of the universe will leave us alone after this.”

“I sure hope not!” Smajor replied sprightly, “Eternity down here is going to get tedious without these little interruptions!”

~*~

Mythland Adjacent, Unmasked Variant

The Angel stood numb beside the stream, his light faded to gray and his wings sagging. He hadn’t moved since The Wither had disappeared. His mind felt frozen. He didn’t know what he would do, trapped in a pocket reality for all eternity all alone. The only difference between this and the amber on the elven medallion was the breath of nature around him here, which he could hear and feel for himself, instead of through another’s senses.

But it was still a lonely cage that he couldn’t free himself from without the help of another.

The realization had come to him that the only person who could reach into this reality was Sausage. He didn’t know what the man would want with The Wither, or why even disturb them after all this time – The Angel wasn’t certain how much time had passed in the mortal world, but they had gone undisturbed for quite a while, as he reckoned. It wasn’t a construct that beings like himself needed to constantly measure, but at that moment he felt their weight. Now he wished he could know how many seconds, or minutes, or hours it had been that The Wither was missing.

Then, the same intruding feeling from earlier began to prickle at his awareness. He turned as The Wither rematerialized on the other side of the stream. The joy was palatable as The Wither reached toward him. They embraced, holding each other tightly.

“Where did you go? What did this?” The Angel asked if only to confirm. The golden color seeped back into his form.

“It was as we suspected. Old business needed to be completed. The evil soul was still out there, my love. Power like that could not simply be banished, or dispersed to repair reality. The root had to be destroyed in the end. There is… one less version now. I saw to it. He will not be disturbing the mortal world again. Peace comes instead.” There was a smile within the hood. “A thousand years have passed. I did not question how he was there or looked the same as he did when you and I first encountered him and Lord Scott, instead of as the aging man we last saw, but it was definitely his soul within. I was not the only one he called upon. Allow me to tell you of heroes and angels that are similar at heart to me…”

~*~

Afterlife, x10 Variant

Sausage sighed as he looked out over his home from atop the guardian tower. He had made his way there as soon as he had returned, needing somewhere up high to gain some perspective. His gaze danced over the buildings tucked here and there, each one planned out as a means of accommodating his individual powers. Something seemed to be lacking that could give them the unifying look of Sanctuary, but he couldn’t quite picture it yet.

He put a hand to his shoulder, close to his neck. Six wings had sure looked impressive. …But they might only get in the way of his exosuit.

However, the whole marrying Scott thing? He smiled in amusement. That seemed a bit of a stretch. But that was a completely different world, after all, that obviously went down a more mundane path. The magic seemed pretty cool, though.

~*~

Mythland, Champions Variant

Scott turned away from his watchful vigil on the spot where Sausage had last stood, gently rubbing Mariposa’s back as she leaned her head on his shoulder. She was currently the only one awake. The rest of the children – as he decided to doublecheck just that moment – were in a small, snoozing pile against one wall, in various stages of leaning on each other or on top of plush animals and dolls.

He had managed to explain the situation without inciting too much panic, and they had all insisted on keeping him company while he waited for Sausage to return. It was starting to get late, however, and he didn’t want them to spend the entire night on the floor.

Mariposa abruptly began to wiggle. Scott felt her moving her arms, then she let out a happy noise of, “Ba-ba-ba!” Scott turned just as a glow was fading out, leaving Sausage standing there looking a little roughed up but the Staff of Mythland still in hand – which the human quickly set down, then rushed to embrace Scott with his left arm. Mariposa babbled louder and gurgled. “Ee-hee!”

This caused the other children to start to awaken. Liana was first and sat bolt upright. “Papa’s back! Wake up, wake up! Papa’s back!!”

It didn’t take long for Sausage to be covered in hugs to the point where he almost fell over, a twin clinging to each leg. Azahar caught him by his right arm to try to help him stay up, but when the prosthetic came loose in his hands, the teen looked horrified.

“It’s okay,” Sausage assured him. “I had a little incident. We need to do some more training to get me into better shape! Now, why are all of you up past your bedtimes?” He had noticed the dark sky outside the window at the end of the hallway.

“They wanted to wait with me,” Scott explained. “I asked Gem to come try to trace the teleport spell, hoping you hadn’t gone far. She couldn’t tell where it went, but she said it wasn’t malignant and that it was a type that would bring you back to the exact same spot on return. So, we all agreed to be patient.”

The weariness in his face told Sausage that patience hadn’t come quite as easily as he made it sound. “Thank you for being good for Dad while I was away, kids. I’m pretty tired, so I think we’ll all go to bed for now. I just need to put one thing away first…” He glanced to where he had left the Staff, only to see Ilan picking it up. His breath tightened in his chest when he thought he saw the top of the Staff flicker brighter, but the child seemed unaffected.

“Here, Papa!”

“Th-Thanks, Ilan,” Sausage carefully took the Staff. “Azahar, go with Dad to put my arm away for me. I’ll send a message to Uncle fWhip in the morning.”

“Oooo,” Liana declared, “Papa’s gonna be in trouble with Uncle fWhip! And it wasn’t one of us who broke it this time!” That set off a round of giggles.

“Yes, yes, I’m in big trouble. You can all watch me get yelled at tomorrow. Off to bed!”

The children scattered, still giggling, off to their rooms. Scott remained to give Sausage a concerned look, to which the human mouthed in reply, ‘I’ll explain after—’ He lifted the Staff.

Scott nodded, then stepped closer to kiss him on the cheek. Mariposa put in her two cents by grabbing at Sausage’s shirt collar. Scott smiled and gently pried her fingers loose, getting her to hold onto his finger instead. He then followed after Azahar while Sausage went to the treasury to return the Staff to its case. He hoped it would be able to remain there unneeded for many years to come.

~*~

Afterlife, DFY Variant

Sausage found himself standing alone on the path between two fields. Well, Scott did say he would go find Pearl… And it was also nighttime now. If Scott decided there was nothing he could do from there, and couldn’t neglect his starborne duties, he might not be at home.

But then Sausage saw a streak of purple light approaching across the sky. He smiled and put away his sword and shield, then folded his arms over his chest as he waited, only to lower them a moment later.

Scott landed in a burst of violet sparkles. He flung his arms around Sausage and hugged him tightly. The seraph swept him up in a kiss, wrapping his wings around him.

“We saw some of what was going on,” Scott said when Sausage put him down. “All that inter-reality energy caused some static in the pool, but we managed to tell everyone apart. That was… um, interesting, seeing the wither and gravital versions…” A brief purple blush colored his cheeks, inevitably thinking back to when his own Sausage had been those types of beings.

“The whole thing was interesting. Uh. I’m fifty-fifty on whether I wanted to be right about Myth. But he did help turn the tide, so…Maybe I shouldn’t have been so quick to get into a fight with him.” Sausage rubbed the back of his neck at the confession.

“Hm, well, there was someone there to kick both your butts for once,” Scott said with a mild chuckle.

“Hey, if you wanted to, you could flatten us both with a meteor! It doesn’t just take some hyper-powered version of me! He wasn’t that impressive! Come on, now!”

Scott laughed louder. “Uh-oh, are you jealous? I know there are times where you miss some of your other abilities.”

“Being a gravital was really cool, okay?! I looked good as a superhero! Not sure I would want all of those powers at the same time, anyway. And I mean, none of those things were really me. This is.” Sausage smiled warmly.

Scott smiled back at him while at the same time remembering Pearl’s explanation for who his Sausage had once been.

~*~

Sanctuary, Prime Variant

Sausage sank to his knees, laying down the Staff of Sanctuary on the way. He took a moment to undo the clasps on his chestplate then set it aside and massaged a spot over his heart.

Bubbles ran over and licked his face.

“Ha-ha, thanks, girl. I’m glad you stayed away from that mess. I’m alright. It’s just, you know… not everyday that you get a stray piece of your soul obliterated by a grim reaper version of yourself. But it had to be done. I couldn’t merge with the piece that was entangled with someone else’s soul and a demon shard still in it, and we couldn’t leave him running around, either.”

Bubbles whined and nudged his hand with her nose.

“Yeah, I… I’m going to need time to make peace with the fact I sent him here and was the cause of the king… my father in this world… becoming greedy for magical power. But maybe… since he gave in to that greed… there was already a chance he would have become evil, even without the extra soul influencing him.”

He chuckled sadly. “No way to know now. All I can do is continue to keep Sanctuary a safe haven until the end of my days. I’ll do it right this time, Bubbles. No more desperate quests, no more poking holes in reality. We accept what has already been done, and we embrace the future for what it is.”

~The End~

---

Guide to the Sausage Variants:

The Protector is the Empires S1 Sausage from The Past Unmasked/Future Foretold Saga, and was the soul that co-inhabited a body with seraph!Sausage in Along the Roads to Sanctuary. I cannot begin to tell you how I had given up hope on an opportunity for a payoff to come from the idea I had for Sausage Supreme in that fic series, and then cc!Sausage himself provided the opening.

The Wither, also from The Past Unmasked/Future Foretold Saga, is a variant of Sausage’s soul thrown into the ancient past of Empires S1, where it was sort of an Afterlife situation but everyone got stuck with one origin. This is based on @killmebythebeach ’s proposal of Afterlife being the legends told in the S1 empires.

“DFY Variant” is the Soul Liminality 2: I Would Die For You series. “DFY” is the acronym Cynthrey and I use when discussing this AU, plus it could also read as “defy”, as in Sausage and Scott defying death to be together.

The “x10 Variant” is not an AU of ours that currently exists, just a little extra thing we came up with to explain gravital!Sausage’s presence without trying to figure out a way it could be a second DFY version.

“Champions Variant” is Empires S1 Sausage from a manga WIP Cynthrey is in the process of illustrating. The children featured here are from the sequel to that, which is a WIP I’m in the process of writing.

And, of course, good old Myth from the first Soul Liminality series (hence “SL Variant”). It’s still pretty wild that I went from a couple of fics playing in the Afterlife universe to an insane crossover that combined all of the AUs I ended up with over the course of a year. I’ve had an amazing time brainstorming all the extra ideas with Cynthrey, and I hope you all continue to be entertained by our future projects! Stay tuned!

#alsmp #empiressmp #alsmp fanfic #empires smp fanfic #alsmp shipping #empiressmpshipping #mythicalsausage #scott smajor #sausage supreme #scosage #soul liminality 2 #the past unmasked saga #soul liminality #lunar yarns

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